Counterfeiting of objects in general, affects the income of manufacturers which manufacture an original object and may also affect the income of distributors wholesalers and retailers. The market of counterfeited objects is estimated to be on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars per year. Methods, devices and systems for detecting counterfeited objects are known in the art. For example, electronic circuits (e.g., passive or active Radio Frequency Identification—RFID circuits) are incorporated in to the object. As a further example, expendable tags with unique patterns such as holograms, tags with spectral patterns and the like are attached to the object. These methods, devices and systems are specifically designed and may be subjected to counterfeiting themselves. Alternatively, systems and methods which analyze an image of the object surface are also employed. For example, such systems and methods acquire and analyze a speckle pattern of the objects or regions in the objects to determining the authenticity of the object. Such methods employ the object surface illuminated with light for creating an optical interferogram known as a speckle pattern.
U.S. Application Publication 2006/0104103 to Colineau et al, entitled “Method for Optical Authentication and Identification of Objects and Device Therefor” directs to a system and a method in which a coherent light illuminates a partially scattering surface of reference objects under specified illumination conditions and record the speckle patterns obtained for various nominal values of illumination parameters. Then, objects are illuminated and their images are captured under the similar nominal conditions and each obtained speckle pattern is compared with a recorded speckle pattern. The system directed to by Collineau et al includes an optical recording device with laser source, a storage device and an optical reading device with laser source, the parameters of the optical devices being modifiable. The modifiable parameters of the optical devices include at least one of the wavelength, direction of emission, focusing of the laser beam, position of the laser source, inclination and position of the object with respect to the laser beam. According to an embodiment of the system directed to by Collineau et al, the system verifies that value of a given parameter may be drawn randomly from the span of admissible values (for example in the case of a particular position of the reading system with respect to the object), the signal observed is indeed the one that is expected. It is thus possible to choose the security level desired.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2014/0205153 to Sharma et al, entitled “Systems, Methods and Computer-Accessible Mediums of Authentication and Verification of Physical Objects” directs to a method for authenticating a physical object. Initially, an image of a marked or unmarked portion of the physical object is acquired under white light illumination. Then a first microscopic image or video of a region of the objects is stored. This first microscopic image includes a texture speckle pattern. A descriptor is computed using object invariant gradient histogram algorithm or a combination of a Gabor transform and a Principal Component Analysis procedure. When verifying the authenticity of the physical object, a predetermined region is chosen and an image or video of the physical object that is acquired by a microscope (e.g., a USB microscope). The microscope can be a handheld device, such a cellular telephone integrated with a microscope, or a digital camera integrated with a microscope. The second microscopic image or video is stored and a low dimensional representation of this image is computed by employing, for example, the invariant Gabor Principal Component Analysis. Then, the first microscopic image and the second microscopic image are compared. This comparison is be performed by matching the descriptors for example according to the Euclidean distance between the descriptors. If a similarity between the first and second speckle patterns equals or exceeds a predetermined amount, then the physical object is determined to be authentic, else the physical object is not authentic.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,020,954 to Aggarwal entitled “Method and Associated Appartus for the Standardized Grading of Gemstones” directs to a system for determining the spectral response of a gemstone which is subjected to a plurality of incident light sources. In the system directed to Aggarwal, an image acquires an image of the illuminated gemstone and a processor compares the acquired image to a reference image and grades the inspected gemstone. In the system directed to by Aggarwal, a ring light illuminates the gemstone to detect surface scratches, facet structures, and to perform color analysis of dark stones.